birthday photo fun

A birthday filled with fun...
I can not begin to tell you how much he loved the balloons...
There was no need to give him anything else.



and then, as luck would have it.. his auntie a brought MORE balloons!!






We brought out the letters to play with.. and the day was complete. We seriously spend hours a day with these letters... He can't get enough of them. :)






It was a fun day... his birthday party is saturday.. oh the fun to be had!

and just for recording purposes, at his drs. appointment

Levi was 25 lbs 2 oz. and 34 1\2 inches long.

Take a Guess...

Sunny Days...



Chasing the Clouds Away...

We stayed home from church and all other activities today, as we are all fighting icky icky colds. This morning we played with play-doh for quite a while... this is what we ended up with...

"ewmo", "e-bird", "ocar" and "cookie".....
love that kid.

2 years

Happy Birthday, my sweet little monkey.

2 years.

It feels like just yesterday, I held you in my arms for the first time. Exhausted, overwhelmed, and more in love than I had ever been. Who knew a tiny little 9 lb baby boy could change my life more than I thought possible. You stole my heart that day, Levi, and my life will never be the same.




You've grown so much this year. You were talking using a few words, but mostly via sign language, crawling all over the place, pulling yourself up, learning to enjoy new foods every day, and still nursing. You loved loved loved balls, and looking at animal picture books.




My how much you have changed. It doesn't even seem possible.

 

You run everywhere, love to play outside at the park, love sledding, and snow...

You have learned so many things.

You LOVE letters. You can name all of your upper case letters, and know about half of your lower case letters. I can't begin to tell you how much you LOVE letters. It's all you want to do\learn.

You can recognize all animals and tell me the sound they make.

I think you are going to be right-handed, which is unfortunate since both your Papa and I are left-handed.

You love bath time, you always have... it's you and Papa's special time of day together. I think maybe Papa loves it even more than you.

Your laugh is infectious. Your belly laugh melts my heart. every.single.time.

My favorite time of day with you is the mornings. We have fun baking in the kitchen together, or snuggling on the couch. You LOVE helping Mama in the kitchen. I love that you love it... (most days)

You love playing the piano, and always grab a book, climb up, open the book, and sit down and play... the book part is very important. If Mama tries to play without a book, you bring one over to me.

You love balloons. You can spot them anywhere, which isn't always a good thing. You also love elmo, veggie tales, and charlotte's web. (P.S. we're having an elmo party for you soon)

You are a sleeping champion. Your bedtime is 7:30, and we normally don't hear from you until around 6:30 the next morning.

You like most foods. Your current favs include "speggy", macaroni and cheese, carrots, and oranges... you are NOT a fan of green beans...

You talk fairly well, saying 2-3 word setences..
and we understand you most of the time...

next up... mastering the potty!

We love you little man, more than you'll ever know.
Happy 2nd Birthday

big week!

This is an exciting week..

Levi will be 2 on Thursday!

How and when that happened, I have no idea..

Mama and Papa love you little man!

bits of blah and thanks

i'm woefully behind here.

so bullet style.

---> mike got home from CA rather uneventfully for which we were thankful. he's officially DONE with his MASTERS... hallelujah!

---> i went back to teaching for the semester filled with kids who don't care to practice and can't understand why they aren't learning to play the piano... oy.

---> levi has recently decided to wake up every night crying for random periods of time, as well as refuse any food we give him at a meal time. (yea, that's fun)

---> it's january. it's cold and snowy, and while i truly don't mind winter, it would be nice to have a little bit of sunshine...

and because that seems rather complainy..

---> i am extremely thankful for a warm and dry home during these cold months

---> i am so thankful that our little boy (who is about to turn 2) is just pure sunshine to my days, more often than not, and is becoming his own little person more and more every day

---> i am thankful for babysitters that levi seems excited to see each and every day

---> i am thankful for the small community in which we live, and even more thankful for the gracious librarians who let levi run around like a fool when we visit. :)

Thank You, Lord!

for your protection!

This morning, I bundled Levi and I up and we headed to church. We live maybe a 1\2 mile from our church. We headed out, the roads were snowy but didn't seem slick. We got up to the church, I hit my brakes to turn into the church... and

WHAM.

I felt us start to spin. Before I knew what happened, the back end of the car was spinning towards the right. All I could do was pray..

"Lord, protect us!"

I started pumping the brakes... and we slid to a stop. We did a 180 in the road, before coming to a stop on the opposite of the road. When I regained my composure, I got us turned around, and I realized then how close we were to the ditch. The back passenger tire was maybe 6 inches? from the point of no return on the ditch that definitely would have required a tow truck.

Thank you Lord for keeping us safe this morning!

squeak squeak squeak

It's cold.

Around -20 with the windchill.

It's cold enough that the snow squeaks.

I ♥ squeaky snow.

It's January....

It's cold and snowy outside. The earth is frozen, and it seems that these long winter months will simply engulf this part of the earth forever...

but it's January..

and that means we can start thinking towards our GARDEN! January means only 4 1\2 months until we're out in the soil again...

digging, planting, weeding... working the soil with our hands.


Because we bought the greenhouse last summer (which by the way, the winter greenhouse a MAJOR bust) we are going to buy seeds and plant early in our little greenhouse. Our gardening situation is a little different being that we garden so far away from our home. Normally we buy plants and stick em in the ground. It's MUCH easier being that we literally can't be at the garden every day. However, this year, we're going to start little seddlings in our greenhouse and then transplant them!

So.. with that.. I need to start looking at seed catalogs..

does anyone have a favorite recommendation?

sometimes

Sometimes...

when I lay our son down into his warm comfortable bed at night... I can't help but pray for all those children who are sleeping on the ground, in the cold.

Sometimes...

when Levi asks for his upteenth "bana" (banana) of the day... I can't help but think of the children who are literally starving to death in the world.

Sometimes...

when Levi asks me for milk or water... I can't help but think of all the children in this world who don't have clean water or access to milk...


Lord, thank you for these small blessings. Help me to be reminded that and we have exactly what we need.. what YOU would have for us.

resting...

That's what i need to remind myself of this week.
Resting in the arms of our Savior, Trusting Him for patience with Levi this week as a single mama, and Peace in not being a major worry wart about silly things while Mike's gone....

Resting in Him.


Mike is in California this week. He left bright and early yesterday morning, and will be gone through Sunday night. He is finishing his masters degree! He walked in May, but had this one final week long class to take. Each year they do a week long residency in January. 2 years ago, when I was due with Levi, we opted for him not to go, as it was scheduled the week before I was due, so here he is now.. making it up.

I'm not going to lie.

I hate it.

I hate that he's gone. I hate being a single mama, I find myself wishing it were me on a solo vacation.. right? can I get an amen from the other mama's out there? but alas.. it's not, and I have to trust knowing that this is what God has led my husband to do, and this is in fact part of that plan...

Lord give me peace, patience, and trust in you, and with Levi this week...

fleece pants

i sewed my very first pair of....well.. anything this week!
i kept my expectations low and went at it... we came away with some not too terrible fleece monkey pajama pants for levi. thankfully he is forgiving about my not so straight lines.. :) and is the easiest to fit. :)

i'd post a pic but my camera sd card is on the fritz, and now i have to go see if they can help me retrive my pictures off of it...

but.. i did it!! and i'm quite proud of myself!